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Static and Dynamic Indicators of Minority Threat in Sentencing Outcomes: A Multi-Level Analysis
Abstract
Designation as a “Habitual Offender” is an enhanced form of punishment which unlike, “Three Strikes” or “10-20-Life,” is entirely
discretionary. We use Hierarchical Generalized Linear Modeling to assess the direct effects of race and Latino ethnicity on
the designation of Habitual Offenders as well as the effect of both static and dynamic indicators of racial and ethnic threat
on those outcomes. Our data include 26,740 adults sentenced to prison in Florida between 2002 and 2004 who were statutorily
eligible to be sentenced as Habitual. The odds of receiving this designation are significantly increased for black and Latino
defendants as compared to whites, though race and ethnicity effects vary substantially by crime type, being strongest for
drug offenses and negligible for violent crimes. Static measures of group level threat (% black and % Latino) have no cross-level
effect on sentencing by race or Latino ethnicity. However, increasing black population over time increases the odds of being
sentenced as Habitual for both black and Latino defendants. Increasing Latino population increases the odds of Habitual Offender
sentencing for Latinos, but decreases it for blacks. The prospect of engaging dynamic as opposed to static measures of threat in future criminal justice and other social control research is discussed.
KeywordsDynamic threat–Judicial outcomes–Race and ethnicity–Social contexts–Hierarchical modeling
... These laws impose sentence enhancements for repeat felony offenders and have been enacted by multiple states across the country. While scholars have repeatedly found that Florida's habitual offender law has been disproportionately applied to racial minorities, virtually no attention has been devoted to Indiana's habitual offender law (Crawford & Johnson, 2008;Caravelis et al., 2011;Beres & Griffith, 1998). ...
... A decade later, taking as their sample all habitual offender-eligible Florida offenders between 1994 and 2003, scholars found not only that Black people were more likely on the whole to be "habitualized" (e.g. to have their sentences augmented by the habitual offender enhancement) than White people, but that there was also an interaction effect between race and offense type, with Black drug offenders 36% more likely than White drug offenders to be habitualized (Crow & Johnson, 2009). The latest study to be conducted on the Florida habitual offender law found further interaction effects between offense type and "habitualization," with property offenders more likely to be sentenced under the enhancement than drug offenders and violent offenders (Caravelis et al., 2011). ...
... Despite the fact that Indiana has had a habitual offender law for well over a century and tends in general to incarcerate its citizens at a high rate, the state's habitual offender law and its sentencing practices more generally have received very little attention from scholars, with no studies examining the law's effects on minority populations to date (Caravelis et al., 2011). Now more than ever, an examination of Indiana's habitual offender law is crucial, as a high putative number of repeat offenders was used by the state prosecutors' office in 2012 as justification for abandoning efforts to reform the Indiana Code (Eaglin, 2013). ...
Decades of research have shown that racial minorities face a higher rate of incarceration and lengthier prison sentences in the United States compared to their White counterparts (Alexander, 2012; Steffensmeier et al., 1998; Chiricos & Crawford, 1995). Moreover, racial minorities and young people often face disproportionately harsher penalties for specific offenses such as drug possession (Steffensmeier et al., 1998). One of the primary drivers of racial inequality in criminal sentencing has been “habitual offender” laws (Crow & Johnson, 2008). These laws impose sentence enhancements for repeat felony offenders and have been enacted by multiple states across the country. While scholars have repeatedly found that Florida’s habitual offender law has been disproportionately applied to racial minorities, virtually no attention has been devoted to Indiana’s habitual offender law (Crawford & Johnson, 2008; Caravelis et al., 2011; Beres & Griffith, 1998). In order to fill this gap in the literature, I used the Indiana Prosecutor Case Management System to examine case summaries of all habitual offender cases from 2015 to 2019 in Marion, Indiana’s largest and most racially diverse county. For each legal case, I coded the defendant’s race and age, the quantity and nature of their past crimes, the length of the defendant’s sentence, and whether or not they were convicted of the habitual offender enhancement. I then examined the statistical associations between these variables to ascertain whether Indiana’s habitual offender law has been disproportionately applied to young defendants, racial minorities, or drug offenders.
... However, recent work extends to prosecutors, whose early charging decisions constitute an influential point of discretion (Caravelis et al., 2011;Johnson, 2014;Kutateladze, 2018;Schlesinger, 2011). Much like judges, prosecutors are influenced by defendant dangerousness and culpability, and are susceptible to potentially biased cognitive shorthands that develop as a result of repeated case processing under time and resource constraints. ...
... Crawford (2000) studied this same enhancement in the female population and results were similar, but with a larger "race effect" in some contexts. More recently, scholars have revisited these earlier analyses using multilevel modeling techniques (Caravelis et al., 2011;Crow & Johnson, 2008). The more rigorous statistical designs found results similar to earlier studies, but also identified distinct patterns related to ethnicity-like Black defendants, Latinx defendants also have a higher likelihood to be "habitualized." ...
... Table 1 presents sample characteristics of the full sample (N = 1,014,646) and then separated by race/ethnicity (White non-Latinx, Black non-Latinx, and Latinx, hereafter "White," "Black," and "Latinx," respectively). While this is a simplistic characterization of race and ethnicity, it is the most precise our data and analyses allow, and is common within sentencing research (Baumer, 2013;Bontrager et al., 2005;Caravelis et al., 2011;Crow & Johnson, 2008). Most defendants in the sample were White (56%) and male (75%). ...
This study examined whether and how discretionary sentencing add-ons (i.e., secondary charges, victim injury points, firearms/weapons points, drug trafficking enhancements) contribute to disparities. We examined add-ons that increase sentencing points and so contribute to a defendant “scoring to prison.” We analyzed: (1) the degree to which add-ons explain racial and ethnic disparities in imprisonment (mediation); and (2) whether add-ons are more adverse for minority defendants (moderation). We did not find that add-ons “explain” racial differences in the use of prison sentences. We did find, however, that some add-ons, particularly those that signal “dangerousness,” are racially/ethnically disparate in their consequences. The findings raise questions about the role of court discretion in perpetuating racial and ethnic disparities.
... Although evidence of racial/ethnic threat in sentencing is mixed (see Feldmeyer and Cochran 2018), many studies have found support for the theory. Growing minority populations have been linked to greater Black-White (and Hispanic-White) disparities in incarceration, sentence length, departures, and other sentencing outcomes, such as the death penalty or habitual offender designation (Caravelis et al. 2011(Caravelis et al. , 2013Feldmeyer et al. 2015;Jacobs and Carmichael 2001;Jacobs et al. 2005;Johnson 2005;Ulmer and Johnson 2004;Weidner et al. 2005). ...
... The differentiation between the static and dynamic operationalization of threat variables has been particularly important in past racial/ethnic threat research. Caravelis et al. (2011) found that counties with large Black populations have smaller Black-White disparities in sentencing outcomes but counties with rising Black populations have larger Black-White sentencing disparities. Similarly, Caravelis and colleagues (2011) found that counties with large Hispanic populations have smaller Hispanic-White differences at sentencing but counties with rising Hispanic populations have larger Hispanic-White sentencing disparities. ...
... Operationalizing economic threat as a minorityto-White employment competition and % minority above the poverty line is consistent with past research assessing economic threat Wang and Mears 2010). However, by assessing the change in these measures over time and treating them as dynamic, we are able to capture the change aspect Blalock's (1967) original depiction of the theory (see Feldmeyer and Cochran 2018;Caravelis et al. 2011). ...
Economic threat arguments within the broader racial/ethnic threat theory suggest that economic competition between minorities and Whites encourages the majority group to apply formal social controls on minorities to maintain their advantaged positions. Prior sentencing research has given limited attention to economic threat and has only done so using cross-sectional measures, which does not capture changing economic circumstances (a key element of racial/ethnic threat). The goal of this study is to provide a test of economic threat—and racial/ethnic threat more broadly—utilizing time variant measures. To achieve this goal, we use case-level data from the Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines Commission (N = 122,666) and county-level data from the United States Census Bureau. Multilevel regression models reveal partial but limited support for economic threat. Specifically, counties with a growing portion of minorities living above the poverty line between 2000 and 2010 had larger minority disadvantages (in comparison to Whites) at incarceration. However, economic threat measures do not significantly contextualize minority–White sentence length differences, while the broader racial/ethnic threat measures do not significantly influence minority–White outcomes at the incarceration or sentencing length decision. The results suggest that economic threat may explain a small but limited portion of the racial disparities identified.
... While some empirical support for the social threat perspective has been documented, most research has demonstrated that, in accordance with the liberation hypothesis, racial and ethnic sentencing disparities are greater among less serious offense types, including drug and property crimes. However, with only a few exceptions (Caravelis et al., 2011(Caravelis et al., , 2013Maxwell et al., 2003), there has been little exploration of these competing hypotheses among violent offenses, and what research does exist has been limited by a rather restrictive empirical treatment of crime type, often focusing only on a few broad violent offense categories. As a result, variation in the effects of race/ ethnicity on punishment among offenders sentenced for a wide range of violent crimes remains unexplored. ...
... However, given these conflicting theoretical expectations, it is unclear whether Black-White and Hispanic-White disparities might be more prominent in the sentencing of more serious crimes or less serious crimes. This ambiguity is particularly salient for understanding variations in the conditional effects of crime type among violent offenses given the wide range of criminal acts that are typically characterized as violent as well as the limited research on heterogeneity in racial/ethnic sentencing disparities across different violent crime types (Caravelis et al., 2011(Caravelis et al., , 2013Maxwell et al., 2003;Spohn & Cederblom, 1991). The primary goal of the present study is to provide some additional clarity to these issues. ...
... The extant research on the interactive relationship between race/ethnicity and crime type generally has found that minority offenders are penalized most strongly relative to Whites in the sentencing of less serious drug and property offenses (Bontrager et al., 2005;Demuth & Steffensmeier, 2004;Johnson & Betsinger, 2009;Steffensmeier & Demuth, 2000;Warren et al., 2012). However, little research has been conducted on these interactive relationships in the sentencing of violent crimes, and this small body of work has reported mixed findings (Caravelis et al., 2011(Caravelis et al., , 2013Maxwell et al., 2003;Spohn & Cederblom, 1991). In response to calls for additional work on this topic (Baumer, 2013;Spohn, 2015;Ulmer, 2012), the present study uses data from Florida to assess heterogeneity in the effects of minority status on sentencing for 12 violent crimes. ...
Within the large body of literature on racial/ethnic disparities in criminal sentencing, some research has demonstrated that these relationships are conditional upon various legally relevant case characteristics, including the type of offense for which the defendants are sentenced. To date, however, few studies have explored the potential moderating effects of different violent crimes. Using data from Florida (N = 186,885), the findings from these analyses indicate that Black-White sentencing disparities are particularly pronounced for manslaughter, robbery/carjacking, arson, and resisting arrest with violence. While Hispanic ethnicity exerts limited effects on sentencing outcomes generally, Hispanics are particularly disadvantaged in manslaughter cases. Relative to minority defendants, White offenders receive harsher sentences for sexual battery, other sex offenses, and abuse of children.
... Furthermore, some studies measure the size of the Black or Latinx population at a single time point rather than measure the change in these populations over a period of time. Population size measures from a single time point represent static threat, while measures of the change in population size over a given time period represent dynamic threat (Caravelis, Chiricos, & Bales, 2011;Johnson et al., 2011). Because Blalock (1967) contends that the dominant group perceives the growth of minority racial populations as threatening, measures of dynamic threat more accurately represent the racial threat hypothesis as originally articulated (Feldmeyer, Warren, Siennick, & Neptune, 2015;Golden, 2012). ...
... A few studies, however, have demonstrated support for an ethnic threat hypothesis. For example, aspects of the ethnic threat hypothesis have been found to be related to harsher immigration legislation (Avery, Fine, & Marquez, 2017), racial disparities in being labeled a habitual offender (Caravelis et al., 2011), racial disparities in school suspensions (Hughes et al., 2017) and overall harsher school discipline (Payne & Welch, 2010), decreased support for liberal policies (Jacobs & Tope, 2007), and increased support for conservative policies (Jacobs, Malone, & Tope, 2014). Other studies, however, failed to find a relationship between indicators of Latinx threat and measures of social control (Carmichael & Kent, 2014;Feldmeyer et al., 2015;Jacobs & Tope, 2008;Leiber et al., 2016;Stults & Baumer, 2007;Whittle & Parker, 2014). ...
... A static measure of minority threat was measured as the percentage of a state's population accounted for by Blacks and Latinxs in that state according to the 2010 U.S. Census (Caravelis et al., 2011;Feldmeyer & Ulmer, 2011). 10 A dynamic measure of minority threat was also measured as the change in a state's percentage of the population accounted for by Blacks and Latinxs from the 2000 U.S. Census to the 2010 U.S. Census (Feldmeyer et al., 2015;Johnson et al., 2011). ...
Despite increased media attention, the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement has received little scholarly attention. News coverage of BLM is often divisive, which suggests important differences may exist in how the public views BLM. Within the context of the racial threat perspective, the present study uses a nationally representative sample of 2,114 individuals from 33 states and the District of Columbia to identify state- and individual-level predictors of BLM opposition. Results reveal that older, Republican, and conservative men are more likely to oppose BLM, while Blacks and individuals who perceive their local police to exhibit racial biases against Blacks are less likely to oppose BLM. State-level racial threat variables are largely nonsignificant, but states with more fatal police shootings are less likely to oppose BLM, while states where the Republican candidate won a greater percentage of the vote in the 2012 presidential election are more likely to oppose BLM.
... For example, Latino offenders are more likely to receive a prison sentence, are given longer sentences, and are less likely to be the beneficiaries of downward departure and more likely to receive upward departures compared to white offenders in the state of Pennsylvania (Johnson 2005(Johnson , 2006Steffensmeier and Demuth 2001;Ulmer and Johnson 2004;Ulmer, Painter-Davis, and Tinik 2016). Similar ethnic disadvantages have been observed in Florida regarding the withholding of adjudication (Bontrager, Bales, and Chiricos 2005), labeling of a defendant as a habitual offender (Caravelis, Chiricos, and Bales 2011;Crow and Johnson 2008), and judicial decisions to incarcerate and sentence length (Feldmeyer et al. 2015;Tartaro and Sedelmaier 2009). Ethnicity has also been linked to more punitive sentencing outcomes in the state of Washington (Engen and Gainey 2000;Fernandez and Bowman 2004;Gainey, Steen, and Engen 2005). ...
... Latino populations are also associated with increased severity in Florida. This measure is inversely related to the withholding of adjudication (Bontrager, Bales, and Chiricos 2005) and positively related to the odds of receiving the label of habitual offender (Caravelis, Chiricos, and Bales 2011;Crow and Johnson 2008) but demonstrates no direct effects on sentencing outcomes (Feldmeyer et al. 2015). Conversely, larger county level Hispanic populations are inversely related to sentence severity in Washington, though no relationship was found in Ohio (Fernandez and Bowman 2004). ...
... The effects of the size of Latino populations on Latino outcomes appear much more varied in Florida. Some find that growing Latino populations are related to increased punitiveness toward Latino offenders (Caravelis, Chiricos, and Bales 2011) while others find that the ethnic gap in severity appears to either decline as the percent of Hispanics per county increases (Crow and Johnson 2008) or demonstrate no cross-level interactions (Bontrager, Bales, and Chiricos 2005;Feldmeyer et al. 2015). The variability in these findings may be indicative of the complexity of this relationship. ...
As the criminal justice system becomes increasingly relied upon to address immigration apprehension, concerns arise that this institution will be abused in an effort to indirectly address this perceived social problem. The consequences of such an approach will likely extend to Latino/a populations as a result of rhetoric linking ethnicity, immigration, and crime. Despite popular theoretical frameworks suggesting that disadvantage will vary according to the size of the population and the extent of perceived threats toward this minority, many neglect attitudinal measures or fail to measure actual criminological outcomes. This project endeavors to address this oversight by exploring potential mediating effects of attitudes on the relationship between population measures and ethnic sentencing disparities. After fitting multilevel models nesting cases within counties and states, the results indicate that there is significant variation across all levels. While greater disparities in Latino/a sentencing were found in counties with greater Latino/a populations, this relationship was nonlinear. Additionally, state level measures of immigrant threat attitudes appear to be stronger predictors of Latino/a sentencing disparities. These contextual effects are more influential than offender level ethnicity, supporting threat hypotheses and suggesting that measurement of this concept should not be limited to offender ethnicity and population characteristics alone.
... Specifically, many studies of state and federal systems have found that Blacks and Hispanics are particularly disadvantaged in the sentencing of property, drug, and other less serious crimes (Demuth & Steffensmeier, 2004;Hester & Hartman, 2017;Steffensmeier & Demuth, 2000;Warren et al., 2012). Similar results also have been observed in studies of non-traditional sentencing outcomes, including the assignment of the habitual offender designation (Caravelis et al., 2011;Crawford et al., 1998) and the withholding of felony adjudication (Bontrager et al., 2005). However, within the broad categories of violent and drug offenses, there is mixed evidence that racial/ethnic disparities are amplified in less serious cases (Kautt & Spohn, 2002;Lehmann, 2020;Spohn & Cederblom, 1991;Steen et al., 2005). ...
... Indeed, net of such variables as crime rates, economic conditions, and political context, minority defendants have been found to experience especially severe sentencing outcomes in areas characterized by larger Black or Hispanic populations (Bontrager et al., 2005;Ulmer & Johnson, 2004;Wang & Mears, 2015). Other work has shown that the dynamic dimensions of macro-level racial/ethnic context size are key, with larger disparities found among cases disposed in locations with Black or Hispanic communities that experienced recent growth (e.g., Caravelis et al., 2011Caravelis et al., , 2013cf. Wang & Mears, 2010). ...
The presence of inequalities in criminal punishment according to defendants’ race, ethnicity, gender, or socioeconomic status arguably challenges the philosophical and moral foundations of the justice system. Nevertheless, there is clear evidence of disproportional representation according to these offender characteristics in US correctional populations. For this reason, much criminological research over the past 50 years, and especially within the past two decades, has been devoted to examining judicial decision-making at the sentencing stage of criminal justice processing. This chapter provides a brief overview of this literature, which consistently has shown that minority defendants, males, and those of lower socioeconomic status receive disparately harsh penalties, even after a host of other legal and extralegal factors are accounted for. Additionally, we discuss the research exploring the individual- and contextual-level conditions under which these inequalities appear to be more or less pronounced. Following this review, we present the theoretical frameworks which sentencing scholars most often have used to explain these patterns, and we emphasize in particular the potential role of implicit biases held and acted upon by criminal justice actors. We conclude by describing several areas where policy reform might reduce these disparities and ensure a more equitable system of punishment.
... The first revision involves differentiating threat from minorities to capture racial threat (i.e., Blacks) and ethnic threat (e.g., Latino; Demuth & Steffensmeier, 2004;Feldmeyer & Ulmer, 2011;Wang & Mears, 2015). The second refinement focuses on the size of a minority population and the extent to which a population has grown, changed, or remained stable (Caravelis et al., 2011;Liska, 1992;Wang & Mears, 2010). As stated by Zane (2018), "This is because relative population growth can present a visible threat to those in power (including decision-makers in the criminal justice system), whereas a large minority population that has remained the same (or even decreased) may not present any symbolic threat to the dominant group" (p. ...
... Past studies testing racial/ethnic threat theory. Most contextual studies of court decision-making have evaluated the impacts of racial/ethnic threat on criminal sentencing across counties within large, diverse U.S. states (Caravelis et al., 2011;Feldmeyer et al., 2015;Jordan & Maroun, 2016;Ulmer & Johnson, 2004;Wang & Mears, 2010). A couple of studies provide evidence for the racial/ethnic threat perspective in the juvenile justice system . ...
Do traditional theories of conflict influence juvenile court decision-making and explain racial/ethnic disparities? Racial/ethnic threat, symbolic threat, and structural inequality perspectives purport social controls increase when groups differ in race, ethnicity, or class. Scholarship tends to test one perspective at a time and use county as a unit of analysis. Taking a comparative approach, this study evaluates whether contextual indicators of these three theories, measured at the county- and zip code-levels, contribute to Black-White and Latino-White disparities in court decisions. Multilevel models reveal weak and partial support for each perspective. More effects appear at the zip code-level, indicating conflict may occur within rather than across courts. Macro-level theories must then be reconsidered to describe modern-day juvenile court proceedings.
... Racial and ethnic contexts in particular have been proposed as community-level factors that could impact disparities. Research has evaluated the influence of macrolevel racial and ethnic composition on racial and ethnic disparities in various case processing outcomes, including the imposition of mandatory minimums (Ulmer et al., 2007), habitual offender designations (Caravelis, Chiricos, & Bales, 2011), and case dismissals (Franklin, 2010). To capture the concept of minority threat, empirical examinations typically measure the number and growth of individual minority populations. ...
... To assess contextual-level race and ethnicity effects on disparities, we include measures of the proportion of the county that is White in 2000 and the proportion White in 2000 squared, as well as the change in proportion of the county that is White from 2000 to 2009. These measures allow for an understanding of the role of both static racial and ethnic threat and also dynamic threat effected by how the demographics of an area change over time (Caravelis et al., 2011). 5 ...
Minority criminal defendants are more likely than White defendants to exercise their right to trial, which is concerning given that research also consistently finds trial sentences to be harsher than those obtained via pleas. However, guilty pleas are not the only disposition available for avoiding a trial; pretrial diversions and case dismissals also serve as mechanisms for trial avoidance. Using hierarchical linear modeling, we find that Black criminal defendants are more likely than Whites to go to trial rather than receive other case disposition. Relationships for Hispanic defendants are less consistent. Fewer county-level effects emerge than expected, providing little to no support for racial threat theory. Results suggest that Black defendants are less often able or willing to avoid a trial, a finding which highlights and perhaps helps to explain racial disparities in final sentencing outcomes.
... or alternatively controlling for some of their characteristics shown to affect sentence severity, such as court caseload, or area socio-demographic composition (Caravelis et al., 2011;Ulmer and Johnson, 2004). However, if we do so, we might once again be controlling for the hypothetical judicial prejudice that we seek to estimate, just as when we control for judge characteristics. ...
To minimise confounding bias and facilitate the identification of unwarranted disparities, sentencing researchers have traditionally sought to control for as many legal factors as possible. In this article we challenge such approach. Using causal graphs we show how controlling for commonly used variables in the sentencing literature can introduce bias. Instead, we propose a new modelling framework based that clarifies which types of controls are necessary to identify different definitions of sentencing disparities. We apply this framework to the estimation of race disparities in the US federal courts and gender disparities in the England and Wales magistrates’ court. We find that the model uncertainty associated to the choice of controls is substantial for gender disparities and for race disparities affecting Hispanic offenders, rendering estimates of the latter inconclusive. Disparities against black offenders are more consistent, although, they are not strong enough to be seen as definitive evidence of racial discrimination.
... Bethard and DiGangi [1] and DiGangi and Bethard [34] referenced sociological work on "missing White woman syndrome" as an example, which highlights how certain cases (those involving White women) are prioritized in social media and news outlets over others [35] and therefore have greater odds of resolution. Other studies have explored the extent to which BIPOC individuals and/or members of the LGBTQ+ community are negatively impacted by the criminal justice system in a variety of ways, from police engagements, to investigative outcomes, to sentencing and parole results [36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44]. Tallman et al. [15] surveyed 128 forensic anthropologists and found 28.9% had encountered transgender individuals as part of their casework and called for greater consideration of queer theory in forensic anthropology research and practice. ...
Forensic anthropology is shifting to reflect on the impact of its practices within the criminal justice context in important ways. Here, we contribute to this essential work by examining how decedent demographics as well as estimations of biological profile components are related to identification trends in forensic anthropology cases. The study uses data from more than 1,200 identified and unidentified forensic anthropology cases from three agencies (together representing a nation-wide sample). We found the following: i) multivariate analyses indicated that decedent sex, age, and race and/or ethnicity are not related to case identification rates in the pooled United States sample, ii) when identification rate differences do occur, they appear to be smaller effects, more agency-specific, and/or related to the context of a particular agency, iii) for the agency-specific sample with available data, there was no consistent evidence for a discrepancy in the duration of an identification investigation based on a decedent’s sex, age, or race and/or ethnicity, iv) forensic anthropological estimations of sex, age, and ancestry can improve the odds of identification for decedents, although these are small effects, and v) reporting an ancestry estimation does not appear to impact decedent race representation among resolved unidentified person cases. Although previous studies have identified demographic discrepancies in other areas of the criminal justice system, the results presented here suggest that decedent demographic estimation practices by forensic anthropologists in general do not appear to be related to discrepancies in identification trends, but more research is needed to examine whether these findings hold. Contextual factors and practices specific to each investigative agency likely contribute to identification trends.
... Mandatory minimum sentences limited judicial discretion (e.g., for first-time offenders), and often indicated harsher sentences for offenses (e.g., possession of crack cocaine) or circumstances (e.g., crimes committed near public housing) that disproportionately applied to defendants of color (Frase, 2019;Schlesinger, 2011). In Florida, sentencing enhancements are given to defendants labelled as "habitual offenders," a designation disproportionately given to Latinx and Black defendants (Caravelis et al., 2011). Finally, a major criticism is that sentencing guidelines simply move discretion from judges to prosecutors, who may select charges based upon their sentences (e.g., Frase, 2019;Yang, 2015). ...
The field of psychology–law is extremely broad, encompassing a strikingly large range of topic areas in both applied psychology and experimental psychology. Despite the continued and rapid growth of the field, there is no current and comprehensive resource that provides coverage of the major topic areas in the psychology–law field. The Oxford Handbook of Psychology and Law is an up-to-date, scholarly, and comprehensive volume that provides broad coverage of psychology–law topics. The field of psychology–law can be broadly divided into applied and experimental domains. Whereas applied specialties in psychology, such as clinical, counseling, neuropsychology, and school, are typically grounded in the scientist-practitioner model that emphasizes both research and the provision of clinical services (e.g., assessment, therapy), experimental psychology focuses almost exclusively on conducting empirical research grounded in theories from areas such as cognitive, developmental, and social psychology. Importantly, both applied and experimental psychologists have made meaningful contributions to the psychology–law field, and each of these domains of the psychology–law field includes a range of well-developed topic areas with robust empirical support. This book provides comprehensive coverage of applied and experimental topic areas, with chapters written by a diverse group of well-established psychology–law scholars and emerging future leaders.
... In their analysis of extrajudicial lynchings in the U.S. South, Tolnay and Beck (1995) highlight both the instrumental as well as expressive nature of violent social control, which served the dual purposes of punishing Black individuals for criminal and social violations as well as sending a threatening message to the Black population at large. In terms of modern formal social control, a large body of research demonstrates support for racial threat as a predictor of incarceration rates (Greenberg & West, 2008;Jacobs & Carmichael, 2001), punitive sentencing (Caravelis et al., 2011;Feldmeyer et al., 2015;Wang & Mears, 2010a, 2010b; felon disenfranchisement laws (Behrens et al., 2003), felony collateral sanctions (Whittle & Parker, 2014), juvenile justice outcomes (J. Davis & Sorensen, 2013;Neill et al., 2015), and state-level punitiveness (Neill et al., 2015). ...
The death penalty is a local phenomenon with 15% of U.S. counties responsible for passing death sentences since 1976. Although state-level research has contributed a greater understanding of abolition and state-level factors surrounding the death penalty, it remains crucially important to understand the sociopolitical context of counties as key decision-makers in death penalty cases. Findings from our study suggest that both racial and gender threats are important predictors of death sentences within these communities. Specifically, counties with Black populations greater than the state median experience increases in all death sentences, while gender equality in education produces an ameliorative effect on death sentencing. The persistence of extralegal factors, especially racial bias, influencing death sentencing suggests that these relationships be carefully considered in the research and administration of capital sentencing.
... Fears among Whites are activated when minority populations grow and consequently threaten the social, economic, and political structures that protect Whites' hegemony. Population size can matter in absolute terms (e.g., numbers or proportions) or in relative terms (e.g., population change over time) until certain tipping points are reached (e.g., racial/ethnic minorities constitute a large majority) (Caravelis, Chiricos, & Bales, 2011;Zane, 2018). Perceiving threats to status quo power arrangements, Whites will enhance the strength and scope of the legal system as a formal social control (Feldmeyer & Cochran, 2018). ...
This article examines the importance of neighborhoods in shaping judicial processing and racial/ethnic disparities in court outcomes. Scholarship instructs that court actors—prosecutors, defense counsel, and judges—make legal decisions with local communities in mind. With the rise of geographic information in arrest records and mapping techniques, greater opportunities exist to evaluate the role of neighborhood context in the juvenile and criminal courts. This article synthesizes research on how the characteristics of neighborhoods where defendants live and/or offend influence judicial processing. Attention is given to how scholars define neighborhoods, identify key neighborhood conditions, and analyze the relationships among places and judicial decisions. Emphasis is also placed on unpacking debates on whether neighborhood conditions diminish or aggravate racial/ethnic disparities in court outcomes, such as incarceration decisions. Its analysis reveals findings of neighborhood effects as well as evidence of neighborhood characteristics widening racial/ethnic differences in judicial processing. This article thus encourages the consideration of community context in disparity studies and policy efforts to improve citizens' access to justice.
... Wang and Mears (2010b) found that changes in percent Black increased the probability of prison sentences in 62 large urban counties, especially for drug and violent offenders, but changes in Hispanic composition were less consequential. Caravelis, Chiricos, and Bales (2011) reported that, in Florida, Black defendants were more likely to be sentenced as "habitual offenders" in counties with higher levels of percent Black change, and the same was true for Latino defendants in counties with higher levels of percent Latino change. King and Wheelock (2007) found that more punitive attitudes were expressed by respondents who lived in counties with higher Black population growth. ...
... The third and final expectation is based on the belief that while minority youth charged with drug offending will be perceived by decision-makers as more threatening than White drug offenders, the threat will be more pronounced for Blacks than Hispanics in communities evidencing underclass poverty and racial/ethnic inequality. This position is in opposition to those that contend the risk may be greater by Hispanics compared with Blacks (e.g., Caravelis, Chiricos, & Bales, 2011;, but parallels some prior research that says differently (Feyerherm, 2017). Our third and final expectation is based on this latter body of prior research, and also provides an opportunity to expand Sampson and Laub's (1993) structural assumptions to Hispanic populations and Hispanic juvenile drug offenders. ...
The present study uses Sampson and Laub’s theory of inequality and social control to examine whether underclass poverty and racial/ethnic inequality hold current relevancy over the court processing of juvenile offenders. Hierarchical generalized linear modeling was used to investigate the impact of community aspects, offender characteristics, and offense-related factors on juvenile court outcomes occurring at intake, adjudication, and judicial disposition. Findings indicate limited evidence for the anticipated relationships between underclass poverty and racial/ethnic inequality on court processing stages. The individual and combined impact of being Black or Hispanic, and/or charged with a drug offense, exerted stronger effects on juvenile justice decision-making compared with Sampson and Laub’s structural factors. Implications for addressing the federal Disproportionate Minority Contact (DMC) Mandate based on the findings are discussed, as well as the future empirical inquiry surrounding whether community factors interact with offender and offense characteristics to influence outcomes of youth referred to juvenile court. © 2019 International Association for Correctional and Forensic Psychology.
... On the other hand, other studies operate under the assumption that threat effects are specific or "targeted" to minority groups. Sentencing studies, for example, have commonly used cross-level interactions to assess whether Black (or Latino) defendants receive harsher outcomes in areas with higher percentages of Black (or Latino) residents (Caravelis et al., 2011(Caravelis et al., , 2013Feldmeyer & Ulmer, 2011 ;Feldmeyer et al., 2015 ;Light et al., 2014 ;Ulmer & Bradley, 2006 ;Ulmer & Johnson, 2004 ;Wang & Mears, 2015 ;Zane, 2017 ). Likewise, policing studies and public opinion analyses have focused on the impact of racial composition on minority arrests and fear of minority crime (or support for punitiveness toward racial/ethnic minorities) (e.g., see Eitle et al., 2002 ;Johnson et al., 2011;Mears et al., 2013 ;Ousey & Lee, 2008 ;Parker et al., 2005;Pickett et al., 2012 ;Stewart et al., 2015;Stolzenberg et al., 2004 ). ...
... An average was calculated from the yearly totals and linked to the county where the juvenile committed their crime. A greater income ratio represents greater inequality, while a lower income ratio represents increasing racial threat, which aids in explaining outcome disparities in instances where the income ratio comes closer to parity between White and Black county residents (Eitle et al., 2002;Caravelis, Chiricos, & Bales, 2011). ...
African Americans have long been overrepresented in juvenile justice, starting at arrest and all the way through to confinement. Importantly, some scholars argue examining “back-end” processes of juvenile justice and exploring the utility of different theoretical frameworks may aid in explaining African American overrepresentation. Drawing on two similar theoretical explanations, symbolic and racial threat, this study examines whether disparities are explained better by perceived threats to the dominant group norms and values, as well as between-group inequalities (symbolic threat) or Black encroachment into the political and economic resources of the dominant (White) group (racial threat). Notably, this study explores the effects of symbolic and racial threat on reduced and dropped charges within one states’ juvenile court. Hierarchical generalized linear models are utilized to analyze official Department of Juvenile Justice files, which were supplemented with American Community Survey data. Results indicated strong support for the symbolic threat perspective but fail to support the tenants of racial threat. Implications of these findings and future directions for research were discussed.
... Further, punitive sen- tencing (e.g. mandatory minimums) is more likely to be targeted at offense types committed by racial and ethnic minorities (Kautt & Spohn, 2002;Tonry, 1987), and applied in court communities with a larger size of racial/ethnic minorities ( Ulmer et al., 2007) to racial and ethnic minority offenders (Caravelis, Chiricos, & Bales, 2011). ...
Gender disparity in sentencing outcomes has been well established in literature. Recent research has increasingly paid attention to social contexts within which judicial decision-making occurs. This study combines these two lines of research by dissecting the nature of gender disparity through ecological lenses. Using 2008–2010 federal sentencing data, we examine the roles of religious and political conservatism in affecting gender-based sentencing disparity. We find that religious and political conservatism reduces gender disparity, with the female discount dissipating in court communities with higher levels of religious and political conservatism. We also find that the conditioning effects of both religious conservatism and political conservatism on gender disparity further interact with race, with black female defendants more likely to be influenced by religious and political conservatism than their white counterparts. Overall, this study contributes to sentencing literature by demonstrating that gender disparity is deeply entrenched in the ecological contexts of court communities.
... For example, researchers have tested crime rate, unemployment, racial composition, and region as predictors of prison sentences, and found that county-level variables interacted with case-level variables to predict differences in jail use (Weidner et al. 2004). Others analyzed county-level crime rates and ethnic makeup to assess sentencing outcomes, particularly custodial sentences, in the context of a minority threat hypothesis (Caravelis et al. 2011). However, while county-level factors have been used to predict sentencing disparities or jail population, no studies yet exist which account for these county-level influences to explain jail escapes or other disorder incidents within correctional facilities. ...
There is a dearth of research on the factors that make some jails more prone to escapes than others. Clarke and Eck’s (Understanding risky facilities, US Department of Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, Washington, DC, 2007) risky facilities framework posits there are seven key factors which predict a facility’s risk to crime and disorder. Using data from 88 county jails in eight contiguous states, this study empirically tests if facility-level risk factors can account for jail escapes. Additionally, this research examines county-level characteristics to account for the macro-level explanations. Jails which had reported an escape during the study year were relatively larger, had higher populations relative to their rated capacities, and employed fewer correctional officers per inmate than their control facilities which did not report an escape. This research discusses policy implications in light of these findings.
... Those incarcerated in the U.S. criminal justice system are racially and ethnically diverse. However, the majority of research investigating differences between racial and ethnic groups has concentrated on criminal justice outcomes, studying issues such as sentencing disparities without addressing how race/ethnicity may have an impact on offending (e.g., Caravelis, Chiricos, & Bales, 2011). Overall, research has found that Latino and African American defendants tend to be sentenced more harshly than White defendants (Bales & Piquero, 2012;Spohn & Holleran, 2000;Steffensmeier & Demuth, 2000;Ulmer & Johnson, 2004). ...
Research examining ethnic and cultural differences among individuals who commit sex offenses remains limited. Specifically, literature focusing on sex offenses committed by Latinos is scarce. Using archival data from a large sample of individuals who committed sex offenses, this study explored differences between Latino, White, and African American individuals related to their characteristics, the offenses, and the victims. Latinos in the sample were more likely to have a lower educational level, and to be living with the victim, than either their White or African American counterparts. To further understand the influence of cultural background, the study also examined differences within the Latino group based on their country of origin. Within the Latino sample, differences emerged in their educational level, criminal background, and psychiatric history. These findings are discussed as they pertain to future research and current practices related to the management and treatment of Latinos who commit sexual offenses.
... Self-report indicators of contact have been used to capture the extent to which different groups interact (Mears et al. 2013;Pettigrew 1998). In addition, scholars often have employed dynamic indicators of racial and ethnic threat, which consider the change or growth in minority populations in a given area (Caravelis, Chiricos, and Bales 2011;Johnson et al. 2011;King and Wheelock 2007;Wang and Mears 2010). It is possible that the patterns identified in this study may vary depending on the use of these or other such measures of threat or contact. ...
Objectives
Drawing on the racial threat and intergroup contact literatures, we explore whether (1) a school’s racial or ethnic context increases school suspensions for Black, Hispanic, and White students; (2) intergroup contact among school board members reduces school suspensions for Black, Hispanic, and White students; and (3) a school’s racial or ethnic context effects on school suspensions are conditioned by intergroup contact among school board members.
Method
Count-dependent multilevel modeling techniques on school- and district-level measures from a representative sample of Florida middle and high schools.
Results
Larger racial and ethnic student populations within schools increase the likelihood of suspensions for Black and Hispanic students while decreasing suspensions for White students. Further, higher levels of intergroup contact between Black, White, and Hispanic school board members are associated with a lower likelihood of suspensions for all students. Finally, intergroup contact between Black, White, and Hispanic school board members moderates the effects of school racial and ethnic context on school suspensions.
Conclusions
Important factors are associated with school punishment for Black, Hispanic, and White students. Integrated spaces play an important role in decreasing both punishment disparities and punishment severity.
... That is, the odds of Black offenders receiving probation versus an alternative sanction in counties with an increasing Black population were greater. Perhaps these findings are not entirely surprising in light of the literature, which suggests that there is a penalty paid by young, Black males residing in areas of high and/or increasing Black populations (Caravelis, Chiricos, & Bales, 2011;Holleran & Spohn, 2004;Spohn & Holleran, 2000). Given these findings, one can surmise that there is strong evidence that racial threat plays a part in the use of sanctions for juveniles in this state. ...
Noting the paucity of research on the racial threat hypothesis in the juvenile courts, this study examined the interplay of defendant characteristics and country-level characteristics on dispositions. Data were retrieved from the Department of Juvenile Justice files in South Carolina and were analyzed using multinomial logistic hierarchical linear modeling. Results revealed support for the racial threat hypothesis, as racial inequity operated in a different manner (more punitively) for Black defendants. Larger Black populations in counties also led to an increased use of punitive sanctions. In addition, concentrated disadvantage effects were found, and heightened levels of teenage population led to higher incarceration rates for Black defendants. Limitations of this study, implications for stakeholders/practitioners, and directions for future research are discussed.
... That is, the odds of Black offenders receiving probation versus an alternative sanction in counties with an increasing Black population were greater. Perhaps these findings are not entirely surprising in light of the literature, which suggests that there is a penalty paid by young, Black males residing in areas of high and/or increasing Black populations (Caravelis, Chiricos, & Bales, 2011;Holleran & Spohn, 2004;Spohn & Holleran, 2000). Given these findings, one can surmise that there is strong evidence that racial threat plays a part in the use of sanctions for juveniles in this state. ...
Noting the paucity of research on the racial threat hypothesis in the juvenile courts, this study examined the interplay of defendant characteristics and country-level characteristics on dispositions. Data were retrieved from the Department of Juvenile Justice files in South Carolina and were analyzed using multinomial logistic hierarchical linear modeling. Results revealed support for the racial threat hypothesis, as racial inequity operated in a different manner (more punitively) for Black defendants. Larger Black populations in counties also led to an increased use of punitive sanctions. In addition, concentrated disadvantage effects were found, and heightened levels of teenage population led to higher incarceration rates for Black defendants. Limitations of this study, implications for stakeholders/practitioners, and directions for future research are discussed.
... This occurs through policies such as mandatory minimums for certain types of drugs, such as crack cocaine, or through sentencing enhancements, which are often triggered by high drug volumes. The literature suggests that both of these policies disproportionately affect Black and Latino defendants (Caravelis, Chiricos, & Bales, 2011;Crawford, Chiricos, & Kleck, 1998;Crow & Johnson, 2008;Farrell, 2003;Ulmer, Kurlychek, & Kramer, 2007). In studies of federal court, practices such as charge bargaining occur more frequently with White defendants (Bjerk, 2005;Bushway & Piehl, 2007;Shermer & Johnson, 2010), producing more favorable sentencing outcomes for White defendants (Bushway & Piehl, 2007). ...
While scholars have noted that The War on Drugs has disproportionately impacted Black and Latino communities, we have little understanding as to how spatial patterns of prosecution and sentencing drive these inequalities. This article explores the geography of race in drug prosecutions by examining the role of neighborhood racial/ethnic and other demographic characteristics on sentencing outcomes for drug defendants in Sacramento, CA. We examine both the rate and length of sentences by block group. Specifically, we first estimate models for the number of prison, jail, and probation or fine sentences as rates per population and as rates per filing. We find that felony drug defendants in Black neighborhoods are penalized after filing through an increased rate of prison sentences per filing, although they do indicate a higher but not statistically significant rate of sentences per population as well. On the other hand, initial patterns of filing primarily drive sentencing in Latino neighborhoods. While the rate of prison and probation sentences differs based on the racial and ethnic neighborhood composition, it largely does not impact sentence length.
Historically, tests of the minority threat theory in criminal punishment have focused on racial/ethnic minority groups, and less on other marginalized groups such as non-citizens. This relative oversight of non-citizens is important because (1) recent decades have been witness to record increases in immigration, and (2) a prominent feature of contemporary American political discourse is the linking of immigrants to crime—in particular, to illegal drugs. In addition, the focus on immigration provides a compelling opportunity to extend minority threat theory by assessing an oft-neglected dimension of the theory—the joint salience of threat level and change. Using a merged dataset of federal drug sentences (2014 to 2019) and publicly available population information, we run a series of multi-level logistic and Poisson regression models to assess whether punishment differs for non-citizen and citizen drug defendants across areas of different foreign-born levels, changes, and level-change combinations. Some statistical, but never substantive, support for minority threat theory exists at incarceration. At sentence length, the preponderance of the evidence suggests that district sensitivity to foreign-born population growth is moderated by the baseline level of the foreign-born populace. Implications for theory and research are discussed.
This study aspires to address three important gaps in the Minority Threat literature by using Multilevel Structural Equation Modeling (MSEM) to develop separate perceptual measures of economic and political threat, exploring the indirect path from population characteristics to sentencing severity via perceived threat, and assessing the transference of immigrant threat onto LatinX offenders. The findings support many, but not all, of the theorized propositions. Specifically, threat indicators definitively load into distinguishable economic and political threat measures. Population composition predicts LatinX sentencing outcomes but is mediated by perceived threat. Evidence also suggests immigrant threat is displaced onto LatinX drug defendants. However, the directionality of these paths is more convoluted than theorized. The corresponding theoretical and methodological implications are explored.
Because of its physical, psychological, and economic costs, victimization is a major concern for scholars and policymakers. To date, however, few studies have investigated how victim injury influences punishment across contexts. The current study fills this void by assessing whether the size of racial and ethnic populations conditions the effect of victim injury and injury severity on sentencing outcomes for race-specific defendants. We find support for the threat hypotheses. Specifically, victim injury and injury severity increase the probability of receiving an incarceration decision for all defendants, in counties with larger Black and Latino populations. We discuss the implications of these findings and avenues for future research.
Addressing the complex issues surrounding repeat offenders has been one of the most enduring difficulties in criminal justice. Those designated as habitual offenders are presumed to pose a danger to society and have subsequently been the recipient of special legislation and harsh mandatory sentencing including life without parole. Habitual offender laws in their current form are intended to incapacitate such offenders, yet this simple concept is fraught with legal, financial, and ethical dilemmas. This entry explores the history of habitual offender laws in the United States, including legal challenges, the impact on crime rates, corrections, and complaints of bias in their application.
Ethnic minorities and individuals of low socioeconomics status are disproportionately more likely to be detained, arrested, and convicted and receive longer sentences for drug offenses. This article explores gender and ethnic differentials among college students' perceptions on the criminal justice treatment of different gender, ethnic, and income groups applied to alleged drug offenders. It uses survey data provided by students at a large public university in South Florida. A two-way classification model examines the nature of disparities in perceptions. Students perceive widespread ethnic inequalities and female and Black students perceive greater disparities in the criminal justice system for all disadvantaged groups.
Racial and ethnic disparities in the criminal justice system have been well documented in prior research. Despite this, few studies have explored the extent of disparities after accepting a plea bargain compared with proceeding to trial. The distinction between plea bargaining and going to trial is highlighted because judicial officials are more constrained by the law when making punitive decisions following a trial. Thus, there should be fewer disparities in punitive outcomes among defendants who went to trial. Using Florida Sentencing Guidelines data from 2010 to 2017 combined with county-level data from the 2010 United States Census, the current study contributes to prior research by investigating whether the size of the Black and Latino populations influences disparities in punitive outcomes among Black, White, and Latino defendants after accepting a plea bargain and going to trial. The results suggest that Blacks sentenced in counties with a growing Black population are less likely to receive a jail sentence but more likely to receive a prison sentence after accepting a plea bargain. However, they are less likely to receive a prison sentence after proceeding to trial when sentenced in areas with a larger share of Black residents. In contrast, Latino defendants who accept a plea bargain are more likely to receive a jail sentence but less likely to be sentenced to prison in areas with a growing ethnic presence. Furthermore, Black defendants sentenced in areas with a change in Black populations receive shorter sentences after accepting a plea bargain. Our analyses provide an intricate story about race/ethnicity, place, and threat in the state of Florida. Overall, the results show that the social context matters, but differently pertaining to punishment outcomes disposed of by plea bargains and trials.
This study examines whether group threats in the surrounding social context positively moderate disproportionate minority contact at preadjudication detention in the juvenile justice system. To do so, the study utilizes a multijurisdictional sample of 96,619 juvenile court referrals across 139 counties (within four states) to examine a series of group threats—racial, ethnic, economic, and age threat. Due to the nested structure of the data, multilevel models are employed. To test the hypotheses, cross-level interactions between group threats and defendant race and ethnicity are estimated following current best practices for measuring interactions with nonlinear dependent variables. Findings indicate mixed and mostly limited support for the group threat hypotheses, consistent with prior mixed findings. Implications for research and policy are discussed.
As an extra-legal factor, social context is a key contributor to racial/ethnic disparities in incarceration sentences. Neighborhoods may have important, yet underexplored influences on sentencing. This study evaluates whether the social conditions and racial characteristics of communities where defendants allegedly offend affect Black-White sentencing disparities. Three-level multilevel model results suggest larger Black populations in neighborhoods of criminal incident increase the odds of incarceration and, to a lesser extent, lengthen sentences for all defendants. Offending outside one’s residential community increases the probability and length of a prison sentence. Neighbourhood effects differ by race, however. Unlike Whites, Blacks receive more punitive sentences for committing offences in disadvantaged areas and less proportionally Black communities. Neighbourhoods thus contribute to racial differences in sentencing outcomes.
Sentencing scholars have established the importance of examining how contextual-level factors influence judicial decision-making. Several studies have tested whether the presence of, or change in, minority populations—indicators of racial threat—impact disparate treatment of racial/ethnic minorities. Relying on these conceptualizations, however, ignores other important nuances of racial threat. The current study addresses this methodological limitation by employing a newly established comprehensive conceptualization of racial threat. More specifically, data from the Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing (FY2013-2015) are used to examine whether Black absolute status, a measure that taps into the sociopolitical position of Black citizens, influences the nature of racial disparities. Findings suggest that Black/White sentence disparities may be moderated by the extent of Black absolute status at the county level.
Drawing on the minority threat perspective, this study assesses the main and interactive effects of racial/ethnic segregation on the incarceration and sentence length decisions. Using the State Court Processing Statistics in combination with other data, we employ multilevel models to examine (1) whether racial/ethnic segregation affects sentencing severity, (2) whether racial/ethnic segregation moderates the effects of racial/ethnic composition, and (3) whether racial/ethnic segregation reduces racial/ethnic disparity in punitive sentencing. Both racial and ethnic segregation displayed mitigating effects on punishment severity. In particular, racial segregation reduced the effect of racial composition on probabilities of receiving a prison term, and ethnic segregation reduced the effect of ethnic composition on probabilities of receiving a jail sentence. Our results suggest that the minority threat perspective and its theoretical accounts of segregation can be partially applied to sentencing outcomes in state courts.
Literature has documented racial and ethnic disparities in resident fatalities by the police and police fatalities by residents. Yet, there has been a lack of research on police-resident relationships within Hispanic communities. Additionally, research has rarely considered the relevance of social context for fatal police-resident encounters or examined resident and police fatalities concurrently. We use data on 7,125 fatal police-resident encounters nested within 1,739 agencies and 1,506 U.S. census-designated places from 2000–2016 to examine whether macro-level racial and ethnic composition distinguishes resident fatalities and police fatalities. Results indicated that the odds of resident fatalities relative to police fatalities were significantly higher in majority Hispanic than majority white places. Racial disparities persisted in mixed-race places with at least 20% Hispanic residents. Furthermore, disparities were only observed in highly disadvantaged places, suggesting that racial and ethnic composition and structural disadvantage must be considered concomitantly to contextualize fatal police-resident encounters.
Despite the growing Latino presence in the U.S. criminal justice system and among those who have committed sex offenses specifically, little is known about the barriers and challenges faced by this population when accessing treatment services. This study sought to gather more information about responsivity factors that may be specific to Latinos who have committed sexual offenses. Service providers who worked with Latinos convicted of sexual offenses completed an online survey and answered questions regarding perceived challenges and barriers they encountered when working with Latino clients and were asked to provide recommendations concerning services and treatment provision. Service providers frequently reported issues related to a lack of culturally sensitive services, bilingual professionals, and clients’ limited knowledge about the U.S. legal system. Among service providers with experience working with undocumented Latino immigrants, some indicated specific challenges such as stressors related to their immigration status and a lack of resources. Professionals’ recommendations were consistent with the challenges reported and findings are discussed as they pertain to responsivity issues in the provision of treatment services to Latino individuals who have committed sexual offenses.
Perceived threat is a central feature of theories of intergroup behaviour, such as the minority threat perspective. Studies have linked perceptions of Latinos as threatening the interests of Whites to Whites’ support for more punitive policies in the U.S., especially in areas experiencing a recent growth in the Latino population. This research, however, is limited in that researchers rarely measure perceptions of Latino threat directly and have yet to expand on the limitations of existing measures. To this end, this study was designed to develop a 20-item Perceived Latino Threat Scale (PLTS) and assess its association with relevant external criteria, including several vehicles for the social control of Latinos. The scale was administered to students attending a Southwestern university during the Republican Party presidential primaries (Study 1: N = 332) and just prior to the 2016 election (Study 2: N = 259). Bifactor analyses indicated that perceptions of Latino threat can be subdivided into four dimensions: economic, political, criminal, and opportunity threat. Higher perceptions of Latino threat, especially economic threat, were associated with support for Donald Trump, being a Republican and politically conservative, and harbouring punitive attitudes toward crime and border control. Implications for theory and research are discussed.
Although studies have analyzed the effects of “stand your ground” (SYG) laws on violent crime, the question of why states are more likely to take measures to allow gun violence (albeit in self-defense) in the public sphere remains understudied in the literature. Using a fixed-effects event-history analysis of a panel of longitudinal state-level data for the period 2005–2012, we expand upon recent research by testing three competing perspectives on the adoption of SYG laws: group threat, political partisanship, and crime. Despite rhetorical framing of SYG laws as a means of self-defense from predatory criminals by gun-rights organizations, we find no effect of crime on the passage of SYG laws. Nor do we find evidence for group threat. Implications of these findings and directions for future research are discussed. Instead, results support the political partisanship view, providing further evidence of the politicization of gun policy in the contemporary United States.
Research on inequality in punishment has a long and storied history, yet the overwhelming focus has been on episodic disparity in isolated stages of criminal case processing (e.g., arrest, prosecution, or sentencing). Although theories of cumulative disadvantage exist in criminology, they are seldom adapted to account for treatment in the criminal justice system. We provide an overview of the concept of cumulative disadvantage in the life course and review evidence on the development of cumulative disadvantages across stages of the criminal justice system. In doing so, we appraise the empirical research on policing, prosecution, and the courts and consider how these largely separate bodies of scholarship are inherently connected. We conclude with a call for future research that focuses more explicitly on the ways that life-course disadvantages shape contact with the criminal justice system and how these processes work to perpetuate patterns of disadvantage within the system and in subsequent life outcomes.
Purpose
Prior studies of criminal sentencing have largely focused on individual-level predictors of sentencing outcomes. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of a variety of theoretically derived community measurements of social threat and disadvantage on the criminal sentencing of convicted felons. This analysis permits an evaluation of whether legal ideals such as equality before the law and policy goals of equal treatment for like offenders are achieved.
Design/methodology/approach
The study examines data of individuals sentenced in the state of Florida and community level measurements of racial and ethnic threat and community disadvantage. Hierarchical generalized linear model is used to analyze the effect of these measures on the dichotomous in/out imprisonment variable, and standard hierarchical linear regression analysis is used to model the continuous dependent variable of sentence length.
Findings
The results provide support for the racial threat perspective though not for ethnic threat nor community disadvantage. The findings and their implications are discussed in terms of theory, research and policy.
Practical implications
Racial disparity in criminal justice practices is receiving increasing public and policy attention, as evidenced by the growing Black Lives Matter movement. Regarding sentencing, racial disparity remains a major research and policy question. While the current research and theoretical literature on sentencing is not conclusive, it is clear that race matters. As a result, racial disparity in sentencing needs to be a priority in subsequent “transitional criminology” efforts between researchers and policy makers to identify, explain and ultimately predict exactly how race impacts sentencing, and how to reduce it as a consideration from sentencing.
Originality/value
This study contributes to a growing body of literature that examines the social context of punishments by using several community level measurements of threat and disadvantage, while modeling the two-step sentencing outcome of imprisonment and sentence length.
This study provides an evaluation of the major policy shift in sentencing practices over the past half-century – namely the shift from indeterminate to determinant sentencing policies and the use of sentencing guidelines. The theoretical literature on courtroom organization and focal concerns informs this evaluation of determinate sentencing practices in Florida. Drawing from prior theoretical and empirical research, hierarchical linear and generalized linear models are estimated to assess courtroom effects on individual level sentencing outcomes. The findings document that location matters when sentenced in Florida. Specifically, the likelihood of being sentenced to prison and the length of sentence varies across counties, even after controlling for individual case and offender characteristics and a variety of contextual characteristics. Additionally, the influence of legal and extra-legal factors on prison in/out and sentence length decisions varies significantly across counties. Several court characteristics, including court size, caseload pressure and trial rate assert direct influence on a county’s likelihood of prison in/out and mean sentence length decisions.
In the context of the criminal justice system, the minority threat hypothesis posits that a growing minority population will exacerbate racial and ethnic disparities as those in power seek to establish social control over the threatening population. Decades of research have produced mixed findings, possibly due to the varied approaches to testing this hypothesis as well as the different populations to whom it is applied. To fully explore the racial and ethnic threat hypotheses for an underexamined population—juveniles transferred to criminal court—and an underexamined outcome—pretrial detention—the present article employs a series of multilevel models to test several versions of the hypothesis. Specifically, the article distinguishes between two measures of minority threat—static and dynamic—and two types of threat effects—diffuse and targeted. Findings indicate limited support for the minority threat hypothesis in all forms. Several interpretations are offered, ranging from consideration of the need for more informed measures of threat to a possible need to modify or abandon the minority threat hypothesis in the context of juvenile and criminal justice processing.
Purpose
The study of racial disparity in the formal application of punishment (i.e., criminal sentencing) is widely recognized as an important area of research. Hundreds of studies have weighed in to determine whether race influences sentence outcomes (e.g., imprisonment and sentence length) and the current work attempts to summarize key aspects of this expansive literature.
Methods
The present assessment relies on 1) prior reviews of the race/sentencing literature and 2) the latest research published since the year 2010 to answer a series of important questions about the race/sentencing relationship.
Results
The preponderance of evidence indicates that race and ethnicity often play a small to moderate role in key sentence outcomes. Relative to white offenders, those who are African American, Latina/o, and Native American often receive harsher sentences, while those who are Asian often receive similar or more lenient sentences. These findings, however, are not universal and tend to be context specific.
Conclusion
The process of criminal sentencing strives for race neutrality but does not always achieve this goal.
Minority threat theory has been used to explain sentencing decisions, but rarely has the theory’s logic been assessed by examining changes in threat. Building on prior theoretical and empirical research, we develop hypotheses about the direct and interactive effects of changes in racial and ethnic threat on sentencing. We test the hypotheses using data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ State Court Processing Statistics program and other sources. The results indicate that increased racial threat contributes to a greater probability of receiving a prison sentence when baseline levels of threat are high. Less support is found for an effect of changes in ethnic threat. We find no support for arguments that minority threat effects are greater among minority defendants, but we do find support for the argument that threat effects are greater among violent and drug offenders. We discuss the implications of the findings for theory, research, and policy.
This research examines the effects of social context on support for the death penalty using individual-level data from the 1974-98 General Social Survey (GSS), which have been linked with aggregate-level data on homicide rates and sociodemographic, political, and economic characteristics. Consistent with instrumental, social threat, and constructionist perspectives, this study finds that residents of areas with higher homicide rates, a larger proportion of blacks, and a more conservative political climate are significantly more likely to support the death penalty, net of compositional differences. These results warrant further attention to contextual and individual sources of public support for the death penalty.
Unwarranted sentencing disparity, a long-standing concern for sociologists studying criminal sentencing, helped to stimulate reforms of sentencing such as sentencing guidelines. Guidelines, however, do not assure the elimination or even the reduction of sentencing disparity. Courts have the discretion to deviate from guideline recommendations, and these departures become a potential source of unwarranted disparity. Therefore we examine five years of recent sentencing data from Pennsylvania, focusing on the degree to which sentences that depart from the state's guideline recommendations involve extralegal differences. We find that legally prescribed factors such as offense type/severity and criminal history are the primary predictors of departure decisions, but that departures from guidelines are also the locus of significant extralegal differences involving gender, race, and mode of conviction (guilty plea vs trial). We conclude by discussing the dilemmas these extralegal differences present for sentencing reform, and their theoretical implications for understanding court decision-making processes.
While empirical research on jails is not as neglected as it once was, there is no study that systematically tests theoretical assumptions on the use of this type of punishment. The present study fills this gap by examining theoretically based determinants of jail admission rates across 157 US cities. The consensus perspective assumes that the legal order reflects a widely held consensus about social harms that require punishment and that the use of formal crime-control mechanisms is a natural response to infractions of this order. Alternatively, the conflict perspective assumes that the legal order reflects the interests of the powerful and that the size of the state punishment apparatus is a response to perceived threats to these interests. Two prominent threat hypotheses are used to assess this approach. Racial and ethnic threat theories suggest that incarceration is more likely in areas with the most blacks or Hispanics. Economic threat theories claim that the rate of incarceration will be greatest where economic differences are the most pronounced. This study uses classical regression to test these perspectives with data from the 1983 Census of Local Jails. With the crime rate, measures of disorder, the size of the police force, the presence of young males, jail capacity, and regional effects held constant, the results provide strong support for the conflict perspective. Income differences between African-Americans and whites, and the size of both the African-American and Hispanic populations are found to explain variations in jail use across large US cities. The findings supporting the threat hypotheses are strengthened in supplemental analyses that restrict the sample of cities to those with a sizable minority population and another that uses updated data from the 1999 Jail Census. Additionally, some models show a quadratic association between residential segregation and the rate of jail admissions providing some support for the contact hypothesis.
Political or threat explanations for the state's use of internal violence suggest that killings committed by the police should be greatest in stratified jurisdictions with more minorities. Additional political effects such as race of the city's mayor or reform political arrangements are examined. The level of interpersonal violence the police encounter and other problems in departmental environments should account for these killing rates as well. Tobit analyses of 170 cities show that racial inequality explains police killings. Interpersonal violence measured by the murder rate also accounts for this use of lethal force. Separate analyses of police killings of blacks show that cities with more blacks and a recent growth in the black population have higher police killing rates of blacks, but the presence of a black mayor reduces these killings. Such findings support latent and direct political explanations for the internal use of lethal force to preserve order.
Dramatic increases in the number of women incarcerated in state and federal prisons have led some researchers to conclude that differential sentencing of female offenders is a thing of the past. This study uses data on offenders convicted of felonies in Chicago, Miami, and Kansas City to address this issue. The authors find no evidence to support this “gender neutrality” hypothesis. In all three jurisdictions, women face significantly lower odds of incarceration than do men. The results also reveal that the effect of race is conditioned by gender but the effect of gender, with only one exception, is not conditioned by race; harsher treatment of racial minorities is confined to men but more lenient treatment of women is found for both racial minorities and Whites.
This research examines the individual-level and contextual correlates of punitive attitudes in the United States. Prior research
suggests that the demographic composition and economic conditions of geographic areas influence public support for punitive
policies. Yet, these findings rest on assumptions about individual perceptions of minority groups as threatening. This work
builds on the threat framework by measuring the concept of “perceived threat” and examining the association between aggregate
social conditions, perceived threat and punitive sentiments. Analysis of newly collected data suggests that individual perceptions
of African Americans as threatening to economic resources is a strong predictor of punitive attitudes. In addition, respondents
residing in areas with higher unemployment rates and places that experienced a recent increase in the size of the African
American population are more punitive. The latter effect is largely mediated by perceptions of African Americans as threatening
to material resources for white respondents. The results agree with racial threat perspectives on social control, but we go
beyond extant research by unpacking the micro-level processes that are central to the threat hypothesis.
Recent research, drawing on the conflict perspective, has examined the effect of the racial/economic composition of macrosocial units on the capacity for crime control (arrest rates). The results show that there is considerable variation in arrest rates between cities and that racial/economic composition substantially affects them, independently of reported crime rates. The effects are specified by type of arrest (property and personal) and race of offender (white and non-white).
Most studies of jail or prison sentence length focus on whether offender characteristics produce sentencing differentials
after legal effects have been controlled, but the findings in the literature have not been consistent, probably because most
studies have been based on a few jurisdictions. To see if political effects explain these discrepancies, this study of 337
jurisdictions in seven states analyzes interaction effects between external political influences and offender attributes after
holding constant multiple individual and environmental factors. To adjust for censoring, Tobit is used to analyze the length
of sentences, while state differences are held constant with state-specific dummy variables. When interaction terms are not
included, the results are consistent with prior research. But the inclusion of political interactions produces findings suggesting
that African Americans and males receive longer sentences when local courts are embedded in conservative political environments
where a law-and-order presidential candidate received more votes. These results support theoretical claims that punishment
is an intensely political process.
As legislatures proliferate novel “enhancements” to criminal sentencing, such as “three-strikes” and related provisions, and as criminologists debate their effects, the role of existing enhancements, such as habitual offender statutes, has received little empirical attention. This article explores the effect of race in the decision to prosecute and sentence eligible defendants as “habitual” offenders. During FY 1992–93, 9,690 males admitted to prison in Florida were statutorily eligible (two prior felony convictions or one prior violent felony conviction) for sentencing as “habitual” offenders. Approximately 20% received that disposition. They will serve at least 75% of their enhanced sentence as compared with the state average of about 40%. Logistic regression, controlling for prior record, crime seriousness, and other relevant factors, shows a significant and substantial race effect. The disadvantage of black defendants is particularly strong for drug offenses and for property crimes that have relatively high victimization rates for whites (larceny, burglary). Race is less consequential for violent and weapons-related crimes. Race effects are more often significant in sentencing contexts that are low in terms of percent black, racial income inequality, drug arrest rates, and violent crime rates. The relevance of these findings for a “racial threat” interpretation of sentencing outcomes is discussed.
This study explores the effects of race and gender on habitual offender sentencing in Florida. The sample consists of 1,103 female offenders admitted to the Florida Department of Corrections in fiscal year 1992–1993 who were eligible for sentencing under the habitual offender statute. Controlling for prior record, crime seriousness, crime type, and sentencing county contextual variables through logistic regression analysis, defendant race was found to be a relevant and statistically significant factor in the enhanced sentencing of female offenders. This factor was most noticeable with black female drug offenders and under structural contexts that were “high,” i.e., the percent of the population black, drug arrest rates, and violent crime rates. The race effects found with this sample of female offenders were often stronger than those in the Crawford et al. 1998 study of 9,960 eligible male offenders in Florida. The relevance of these findings is discussed.
This study uses data on Pennsylvania sentencing practices to compare the sentence outcomes of white, black, and Hispanic defendants. Besides the overall more lenient treatment of white defendants, our main finding is that Hispanic defendants are the defendant subgroup most at risk to receive the harshest penalty. This pattern is held across all comparisons—i.e., for both the in/out and term-length decisions and for both drug and nondrug cases. These findings are consistent with the “focal concerns” framework on sentencing and with hypotheses drawn from the writings on prejudice and inter group hostility suggesting that the specific social and historical context facing Hispanic Americans will exacerbate perceptions of their cultural dissimilarity and the “threat” they pose.
Prior theory and research on sentencing oversimplify the role of race, gender and age in judicial decision making. In this article we present a “focal concerns” theory of judicial decision making to frame hypotheses regarding the effects on sentencing of these social statuses, both singly and in combination. Analyzing statewide sentencing outcomes in Pennsylvania for 1989–1992, we find that, net of controls: (1) young black males are sentenced more harshly than any other group, (2) race is most influential in the sentencing of younger rather than older males, (3) the influence of offender's age on sentencing is greater among males than females, and (4) the main effects of race, gender, and age are more modest compared to the very large differences in sentencing outcomes across certain age-race-gender combinations. These findings demonstrate the importance of considering the joint effects of race, gender, and age on sentencing, and of using interactive rather than additive models.
Florida law allows judges to withhold adjudication of guilt for persons who have either pled guilty or been found guilty of a felony. This provision may apply only to persons who will be sentenced to probation, and it allows such individuals to retain all civil rights and to truthfully assert they had not been convicted of a felony. This paper examines the effects of race and Hispanic ethnicity on the withholding of adjudication for 91,477 males sentenced to probation in Florida between 1999 and 2002. Hierarchical Generalized Linear Modeling is used to assess the direct effects of defendant attributes as well as the cross-level interactions between race, ethnicity and community level indicators of threat, such as percentage black and Hispanic and concentrated disadvantage. Our results show that Hispanics and blacks are significantly less likely to have adjudication withheld when other individual and community level factors are controlled. This effect is especially pronounced for blacks and for drug offenders. Cross-level interactions show that concentrated disadvantage has a substantial effect on the adjudication withheld outcome for both black and Hispanic defendants. The implications of these results for the conceptualization of racial/ethnic threat at the individual, situational and social levels are discussed.
In Pennsylvania, the imposition of mandatory minimum sentences presents an important opportunity to examine relatively “pure” prosecutorial discretion over sentencing outcomes. The authors present a multilevel analysis of the prosecutorial decision to apply a mandatory minimum among mandatory eligible offenders sentenced for drug crimes or as repeat, “three-strikes” offenders. They find that prosecutors’ decisions to apply the mandatory minimum are significantly affected by the type and characteristics of offenses and guideline sentence recommendations, prior record, mode of conviction, and gender. They also find that Hispanic males are more likely to receive mandatory minimums and that Black-White differences in mandatory application increase with county percentage Black. The authors frame and interpret their analysis and findings in light of the uncertainty reduction theory of prosecutorial discretion, the view of courts as communities, and an integrative focal concerns perspective on criminal justice decision-making.
We develop a conceptual model articulating the mechanisms by which racial threat is theorized to affect social control, focusing specifically on the influence of the relative size of the black population on the likelihood that the police will arrest a black citizen suspected of a violent criminal offense. A multilevel analysis of 145, 255 violent crimes reported to police in 182 cities during 2000 shows only qualified support for racial threat theory. Controlling for the amount of race-specific crime reported to police, our findings reveal that black citizens actually have a lower probability of arrest in cities with a relatively large black population. This finding tends to cast doubt on the validity of the racial threat hypothesis. No evidence buttresses the claim that economic competition between whites and blacks affects arrest probabilities. However, results show that in cities where racial segregation is more pronounced blacks have a reduced risk sof being arrested relative to whites. Crimes involving black offenders and white victims are also more apt to result in an arrest in cities that are racially segregated. These findings support the view that racial segregation is an informal mechanism to circumscribe the threat of potentially volatile subordinate populations.
This study extends recent inquiries of contextual effects in sentencing by jointly examining the influence of judge and courtroom social contexts. It combines two recent years of individual sentencing data from the Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing (PCS) with data on judicial background characteristics and county court social contexts. Three-level hierarchical models are estimated to investigate the influence of judge and county contexts on individual variations in sentencing. Results indicate that nontrivial sentencing variations are associated with both individual judge characteristics and county court contexts. Judicial background factors also condition the influence of individual offender characteristics in important ways. These and other findings are discussed in relation to contemporary theoretical perspectives on courtroom decision making that highlight the importance of both judge and court contexts in sentencing. The study concludes with suggestions for future research on contextual disparities in criminal sentencing.
Criminal sentencing is, along with arresting and prosecuting, among the most important of formal social control decisions. In this study we use hierarchical modeling to test hypotheses about contextual level influences and cross level interaction effects on local court decisions. Most of the explanatory “action,” our analysis shows, is at the individual case level in criminal sentencing. We also find evidence that local contextual features–such as court organizational culture, court caseload pressure, and racial and ethnic composition–affect sentencing outcomes, either directly or in interaction with individual factors. We conclude by discussing theoretical implications of our findings, and how our study points out some dilemmas among civil rights, local autonomy and organizational realities of criminal courts.
Recent scholarship on criminal punishments increasingly highlights the importance of courtroom social contexts. Combining recent data from the U.S. Sentencing Commission (FY1997–2000) with aggregate data on federal districts, the current study examines interdistrict variations in the application of downward departures from the federal sentencing guidelines. Findings indicate that substantial variation exists in the probability of both prosecutor-initiated substantial assistance departures and judge-initiated downward departures. This variation is accounted for, in part, by organizational court contexts, such as caseload pressures, and by environmental considerations, such as the racial composition of the district. Additional evidence suggests that individual trial penalties and race disparities are conditioned by aggregate court contexts. Drawing on interviews with federal justice personnel, this article concludes with a discussion of future directions for research on federal guidelines departures.
Part of the glory of the federal system…is that you've got this one big organization, but it can be molded to different needs… - An assistant U.S. attorney -
Recent analyses of guideline sentencing practices have demonstrated that sentences departing from guidelines serve as a significant locus of racial/ethnic and other extralegal disparity. Little is known, however, about the ways that different courtroom processes, such as modes of conviction, condition these effects. Using recent data from the Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing (PCS), I analyze the overall effects of race/ethnicity and other factors on judicial decisions to depart from the sentencing guidelines, and then I reexamine these relationships according to four modes of conviction (non-negotiated pleas, negotiated pleas, bench trials, and jury trials). I argue that the mode of conviction provides a useful indicator of the differential exercise of discretion by different courtroom actors in the sentencing process. As such, it is likely to condition the use of stereotypical patterned responses, thus moderating the effects of race/ethnicity and other relevant sentencing factors. Findings support this expectation, demonstrating that extralegal effects vary considerably across modes of conviction. These results raise important questions about the role of different courtroom actors in contributing to racial and ethnic disparities under sentencing guidelines.
Historically, the announcement and invocation of criminal penalties were public spectacles. Today, fear of crime and disaffection with the criminal justice system guarantee that this public fascination with punishment continues. In the past decade, virtually every legislature in the country has undertaken sentencing reform, in the hope that public concern with crime would be allayed and dispari ties in criminal sentences would be reduced if not eliminated. Scholars have intensified their longstanding preoccupation with discrimination and the sources of disparate treatment during sentencing - issues that continue to fuel contem porary reform efforts. As documented in Chapter 1, empirical research on sen tencing has concentrated much of its attention on the offender. Only recently have attempts been made to imbed sentencing in its broader organizational and social contexts. Our study extends these attempts by quantitatively analyzing the relationship between the offender and the social contexts in which he or she is sentenced. We use data on felony sentencing in Georgia between 1976 and 1985 to ask three questions. The first addresses an issue of perennial concern: during sentencing, how important are offender attributes, both those of explicit legal relevance and traits whose legal relevance is questionable or nonexistent? The second question directs attention to the social contexts of sentencing and asks whether they directly affect sentencing outcomes.
This paper integrates two separate research traditions that link inequality and official responses to crime. It focuses on
inequality both as a property of communities where punishment occurs and as a property of punished offenders. Community inequality
is conceptualized as a context that conditions differential treatment based on offender attributes and behavior. The analysis
of data from Georgia supports such a conceptualization. Inequality tends to foster disproportionately harsher punishment of
more dangerous and socially disadvantaged offenders. There are exceptions to these general trends, however. Most notably,
white rather than black offenders are at a disadvantage in counties with high racial income inequality and large black populations.
Taken as a whole, the results argue for greater attentiveness to the economic context within which sentencing occurs, and
for research strategies that can specify the intervening mechanisms through which community inequality operates.
Preface Minority Group Threat, Crime, and Policing Social Context in the National and Historical Perspective Minority Visibility and Social Control Across the Nation: Variations in Hostility and Social Control The Changing National Perspective: A Decade of Transition in Large Industrial Cities Mid-Sized Cities at the End of the Decade A Decade's Change in Southern and Western Cities Policing, Minorities, and Social Context: Conclusions and Implications Appendix Index
The Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 mandated major restructuring of federal sentencing through specific sentencing guidelines. New sentencing guidelines developed by the United States Sentencing Commission and adopted in 1987 explicitly linked sentencing to "relevant conduct"-offense characteristics-and sought to abolish unwarranted sentence disparity. The guidelines substantially reduced judicial discretion and resulted in a criminalization and sentencing process that is largely prosecutor controlled. The author has generated hypotheses that relate defendant characteristics, guilty pleas, and departures from sentencing guidelines to sentence outcomes under the federal sentencing guidelines. She first examined the variables influencing sentence severity for the drug offenders who were sentenced in 1991-92. She then explored the interaction effects by estimating the tobit equation separately for three groups-black, white, and Hispanic defendants-to discover whether defendant's ethnicity conditions the effect of other defendant characteristics, guidelines-defined legally relevant variables, guilty pleas, and departures on sentence severity. Her analysis reveals that disparity in federal sentencing of drug offenders is linked not only to offense-related variables, as structured by the guidelines, but also to defendant characteristics such as ethnicity, gender, educational level, and noncitizenship, which under the guidelines are specified as legally irrelevant.
This article develops a macrolevel framework on inequality and juvenile court processing by integrating ideas drawn from conflict theory, research on urban poverty, and recent race-specific trends in drug enforcement. Using 1985 data for more than 200 U.S. counties, we examine how structural context-especially racial inequality and the concentration of "underclass" poverty-influence the formal petitioning, predisposition detention, and out-of-home placement of juveniles. The data are generally consistent with the hypothesis that underclass blacks are viewed as a threatening group to middle-class populations and are thus subjected to increased control by the juvenile justice system. We discuss the implications of our results for a better understanding of the relationship between larger societal forces of increasing poverty and racial inequality and local systems of formal social control.
Based on an integration of work on uncertainty avoidance in decision making with research on causal attribution in punishment, the author hypothesizes that judges attempt to manage uncertainty by developing “patterned responses” that are the product of an attribution process involving assessments of the offender's likelihood of committing future crime. Washington, D. C, felony sentencing data generated by the Prosecutor's Management and Information System (PROMIS) were used to test this integrated theoretical model. Support for the theoretical integration is provided by the evidence of the effects of prior record, defendant's race, use of a weapon, pretrial release, and the interaction between defendant's race and bail outcome on sentence severity. Contrary to common suppositions, information on defendant-victim relationship and victim provocation was unrelated to sentence severity. Further research should examine judges' attempt to reduce uncertainty by relying on stereotypes and attributions linked to the likelihood of recidivism.
Although sentencing research has expanded over the past decade, very little has been published in the area of habitual-offender statutes. The current research revisits and updates two of the few studies that focused on these sentencing enhancements. Crawford, Chiricos, and Kleck (1998), and later Crawford (2000), examined the application of the habitual-offender sentence enhancement for offenders in Florida in 1992 and 1993. Consistent with the prior research, this study includes individual-level as well as county-level variables and also updates the analysis by examining more recent data, including a measure of ethnicity, and using hierarchical general linear modeling to simultaneously model individual-level data nested within counties. The racial threat perspective serves as the backdrop to explain racial and ethnic disparity in punishment decisions based on contextual as well as individual threat. The findings indicate that racial and ethnic sentence disparity exists when habitual-offender status is invoked in Florida.
The relatively high imprisonment rates of African American men from poor neighborhoods raise a question of whether felony sentences are influenced by ecological factors, separately from or in conjunction with a defendant's race. To provide insight on the topic, both legal and extralegal effects on imprisonment and sentence length were modeled for nearly 3,000 convicted felons from more than 1,000 census tracts in Ohio. Neighborhood effects were estimated with empirical bayes coefficients as outcomes, derived from hierarchical analyses, to adjust for the small ratio of defendants to tracts. Findings revealed that convicted felons from more disadvantaged neighborhoods were more likely to receive nonsuspended prison sentences, whereas a defendant's race was unrelated to imprisonment. By contrast, neighborhood disadvantage was unrelated to sentence length for imprisoned defendants, whereas African Americans received significantly shorter terms relative to Whites. The processes through which ecological context may operate to affect sentence severity are discussed.
This paper builds on Kalven and Zeisel's “liberation hypothesis” and explores the possibility that racial discrimination in sentencing is confined to less serious cases. We examined the sentences imposed on defendants convicted of violent felonies in Detroit. We found that defendant's race had a direct effect only on the decision to incarcerate but had indirect effects on both incarceration and sentence length. Further analysis revealed an interaction between the race of the defendant, the seriousness of the case, and the harshness of the sentence. Using a number of measures of the seriousness of the case, we found that race had a significant effect on incarceration only in less serious cases. Our findings provide dramatic support for the liberation hypothesis and highlight the importance of using an interactive rather than an additive model in sentencing research.
Although the social context of a court is often claimed to be important to understanding the effect of the offender's race on punishment decisions, the links between context and racial disparities in punishment decisions are not well understood. I propose and test four hypotheses involving elements that may link social context to racial disparities in punishment decisions: urbanization, racial threat, economic threat, and crime control. I test these four hypotheses with sentencing data from the Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing for the period 1991 to 1994. The main findings are as follows: (1) punishment severity varies by court jurisdiction, even after controlling for offender and case characteristics; (2) racial disparities vary by court jurisdiction, with controls for other offender and case characteristics; (3) measures of social context explain little of the contextual variation in punishment decisions for all offenders; and (4) measures of social context do not explain racial disparities in punishment decisions. Thus, I find convincing evidence of contextual variation in punishment decisions, but typical indicators of social context do not explain these variations.
Research on sentencing has made clear that factors beyond case and offenders' attributes influence court decisions. Environmental and procedural characteristics also significantly affect the sentences of criminal courts. Yet, while state-level studies regularly control for such factors, most research on modern federal determinate sentencing has neglected jurisdictional attributes and variation as sources of extralegal sentence disparity. Using the organizational context and social worlds theoretical perspectives with a multilevel analytical approach, this study assessed how district and circuit of adjudication affect case-level lengths of sentences for federal drug-trafficking offenses, finding that both significantly affect sentencing outcomes and their predictors.
We examine in this article the relationship between economic inequality and rates of violent crime of blacks and whites, using
SMSA-level data for 1980 as compiled from raw arrest data on index violent crimes in the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports and from
the 1980 census. The analysis is disaggregated by race and uses alternative measures of inequality (and poverty) to provide
more theoretically appropriate indicators of income inequality, including measures of within-race inequality in addition to
measures of overall inequality and between-race inequality. Controls are included for racial composition and other variables
related to race and crime. We find that the effects of inequality differ sharply for blacks and whites. Inequality strongly
affects white violence rates — high inequality is associated with high white arrest rates for the violent crimes. However,
inequality has a weak effect on black violence rates. The theoretical and research implications of our findings are discussed.
A central and recurring concern in the sociology of criminal law is racial disparity in imprisonment—blacks are much more
likely than whites to be imprisoned for crimes. Sociological theories disagree over the sources of imprisonment disparity.
Prior research has ignored the social, economic, and legal characteristics of states and regions of the country that may contribute
to disparity. The present study finds differences in the social standing of blacks relative to whites that explain substantial
and statistically significant variation in racial disparity in imprisonment across states after racial differences in involvement
in crime are controlled. Blacks are more likely than whites to be imprisoned in states where the black population is a small
percentage of the total population and predominantly urban. The implications of these findings for a structural theory of
punishment are discussed.
Durkheimian, Marxist, and Weberian theories provide contrasting views of the influences of the social structure of areas and communities on law and the legal process. In light of these theories, we examine how various aspects of community social structure differentially affect criminal punishments administered to whites and nonwhites. Using county-level data from the state of Washington, we regress white and nonwhite rates of imprisonment on measures of crime and arrest rates, county social structure, and court workload. This analysis indicates that nonwhites—but not whites—are particularly likely to be sentenced to prison in urbanized counties and in counties with relatively large minority populations. We conclude by presenting material from interviews with justice officials which sheds light on the perceptual and political processes that link structural conditions to patterns of criminal punishment.
This study used hierarchical logistic modeling to examine the impact of legal, extrale- gal, and contextual variables on the decision to sentence felons to prison in a sample of large urban counties in 1996. None of the four contextual (county-level) vari- ables—the level of crime, unemployment rate, racial composition, and region— increased the likelihood of a prison sentence, but 10 case-level factors, both legal and extralegal, and several macro-micro interaction terms were influential. These results demonstrate the importance of considering smaller geographic units (i.e., counties instead of states) and controlling for case-level factors in research on interjuris- dictional differences in prison use.
The often observed association between the size of the black population and the amount of social control imposed on blacks
has been interpreted as consistent with one of three conceptually distinct perspectives: (1) the political threat hypothesis,
(2) the economic threat hypothesis, and (3) the threat of black crime hypothesis. Although these three hypotheses advance
differing conceptualizations of threat, adjudicating between them has proven difficult. The current study uses county-level
data drawn from South Carolina's National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS), race-specific voting data, and demographic
data to investigate the validity of each of these racial threat hypotheses. Results from a pooled cross-sectional time-series
analysis show that black-on-white crime has a substantive positive effect on black arrest levels. In contrast, no such effect
is observed for black-on-black crime. These findings taken together furnish strong support for the threat of black crime hypothesis.
The curvilinear relationship between the ratio of black-to-white votes cast in a general election and black arrest levels
hypothesized by the political threat hypothesis does not hold for the data analyzed. Additionally, we find no empirical support
for the economic threat hypothesis. The implications of these findings are discussed.
Reports on study of economic and social data from 400 counties in cotton-growing areas of southern United States between 1890 and 1929. Finds economic and political competition between white and African-American cotton growers led to racial discrimination and legal executions of African Americans. Asserts legal executions declined when political threat from African Americans was neutralized by restrictive voting statutes. (CFR)
Research on social inequality in punishment has focused for a long time on the complex relationship among race, ethnicity, and criminal sentencing, with a particular interest in the theoretical importance that group threat plays in the exercise of social control in society. Prior research typically relies on aggregate measures of group threat and focuses on racial rather than on ethnic group composition. The current study uses data from a nationally representative sample of U.S. residents to investigate the influence of more proximate and diverse measures of ethnic group threat, examining public support for the judicial use of ethnic considerations in sentencing. Findings indicate that both aggregate and perceptual measures of threat influence popular support for ethnic disparity in punishment and that individual perceptions of criminal and economic threat are particularly important. Moreover, we find that perceived threat is conditioned by aggregate group threat contexts. Findings are discussed in relation to the growing Hispanic population in the rapidly changing demographic structure of U.S. society.
Recently, Liska, Lawrence, and Benson (1981) and Greenberg, Kessler, and Loftin (1985) have examined the effects of static measures of social and economic characteristics of cities on changes in police force size. In brief, they report that these measures have small and inconsistent effects on changes in police force size during the previous three decades. This study extends this research by examining the influence of static and dynamic measures of social structure on the change in police force size among cities during the 1970s. The results indicate that three dynamic measures of social structure significantly affect change in police size and thereby support the contention that the failure to control for processes of change may have led to specification bias in previous attempts to model changes in police size.
Educational and psychological researchers have long debated the relationship between retention and achievement. However, quantitative research on achievement trajectories has neglected this important variable. Given that retention policies are being institutionalized in schools, it is important to understand the relationship between retention and achievement trajectories. We examine the National Education Longitudinal Study, 1988–1992 to determine if reading and mathematical achievement trajectories for black, white, poor, and nonpoor high school students vary by their experiences with retention. Utilizing growth modeling, we illustrate that an awareness of students’ past promotion patterns through school (i.e., experiences with retention) helps us better predict achievement trajectories. Moreover, by analyzing the cojoined effects of race and class, we reveal disparate costs of retention. In fact, we find that poor, white retained students are particularly disadvantaged by experiences with retention. We interpret this finding in light of recent cultural explanations of race and class educational disparities and the historical and institutional stratification processes from which they derive.
Using data on cases of intimate assault, we offer a relatively rare examination of disparities in court dispositions across multiple stages of case processing. In this context we introduce the theoretical and empirical relevance of considering the characteristics of defendants' neighborhoods as possible extralegal influences on disposition severity. Bilevel analyses of 2,948 males arrested for misdemeanor assaults on intimates in Cincinnati reveal significant disparities based on neighborhood socioeconomic status (SES) in decisions related to charging, full prosecution, conviction, and incarceration, even when adjusting for compositional differences in defendant's race and SES across neighborhoods. Implications are discussed for the broader literature on extralegal disparities.
We extend earlier analyses of the factors that explain differences among the U.S. states in imprisonment rates by demonstrating the importance of state culture and political arrangements to the explanation of imprisonment rates, and growth in those rates, for the years 1971–1991.
This study examines the theoretical and empirical linkages between criminal court social contexts and the judicial use of sentences that deviate from the recommendations of sentencing guidelines. Individual sentencing data from the Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing (PCS) are combined with county-level measures of social context to examine predictions about the role courtroom characteristics play in judicial departures. Results from hierarchical analyses suggest that the likelihood of departure varies significantly across courts, even after accounting for variations in individual case characteristics. Several measures of courtroom social context—including the size of the court, its caseload pressure and the overall guidelines compliance rate—are significantly related to the individual likelihood of receiving a departure sentence. Moreover, the social context of the court also conditions the influence of various individual-level sentencing considerations. Findings are discussed in relation to contemporary theoretical perspectives on courtroom decision making and future directions for research on contextual disparities in criminal sentencing are suggested.